Deadpool 3 Director Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds Want a Stranger Things Crossover in New Film

By Russ Burlingame

Shawn Levy hit box office gold with Free Guy, his 2021 blockbuster featuring Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds -- and it opened up a door to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for him. As director of the planned Deadpool 3, the filmmaker will get to bring the Merc With a Mouth into a much more PG-13 setting. Along the way, he's hoping that the meta-humor that Deadpool is famous for might open up another possibility: a crossover with Stranger Things, the Netflix series Levy serves as an executive producer on. While the two properties come from different corporate parents, that didn't stop the first two films form having little winks and nods to Green Lantern, which starred Reynolds along with his Free Guy co-star Taika Waititi.

At the Emmys last night, Levy told Variety that he's trying to figure out how to make such a crossover work. If there's anybody who can do it, it's got to be Deadpool.

"Ryan and I were trying to figure out how in the world can we do a Deadpool [and] Stranger Things crossover," Levy told the trade.

You can see the clip below.

Deadpool 3 will be written by Bob's Burgers' Wendy Molyneaux and Lizzie Molyneaux-Loeglin, with Deadpool and Deadpool 2 writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick reportedly also returning to contribute to the script. Additional cast members have not been confirmed at this time, but we do know that the film will be the first in the franchise to be released by Marvel Studios, following the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney.

"It will be rated R and we are working on a script right now, and Ryan's overseeing a script right now," Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige shared earlier in an interview last year.

"It will not be [filming] this year," Feige added. "Ryan is a very busy, very successful actor. We've got a number of things we've already announced that we now have to make, but it's exciting for it to have begun. Again, a very different type of character in the MCU, and Ryan is a force of nature, which is just awesome to see him bring that character to life."

In addition to Free Guy, Reynolds worked with Levy on The Adam Project for Netflix -- which may give them a little more leverage to borrow some Christmas lights and waffles down the line.

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